1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to online shopping, and more particularly to a method for providing recommendations to a user at a website based on aggregated shopping cart information from one or more users who have shopped at the website.
2. Description of Related Art
Online shopping has many advantages over traditional shopping. A user can easily search and browse merchandise on an unlimited number of seller web sites, compare prices, and place orders from a computer in a short period of time, without spending time actually visiting any stores. In addition, some online web sites provide shopping recommendations to the user to further improve the online shopping experience.
For example, an existing online book shopping website provides information about similar books to users. A user may be planning a trip to San Francisco and is searching for books about San Francisco. Among various books, the user may be interested in a book named Frommer's San Francisco 2007. After reading information about the book, the user may put the book in a shopping cart. A shopping cart screen may be presented to the user. This screen may include information about the user's shopping cart, e.g., the name of the book, the picture of its cover, and the author and price of the book. In addition, the screen may also include information about similar books. Under a line “Customers who bought this book also bought,” information about the book Fodor's San Francisco 2007 and the book San Francisco (Eyewitness Travel Guides) may be shown, including their pictures, authors and prices.
Sometimes, users may appreciate suggestions about complementary or matching products. For instance, a user may be interested in buying a garment and wants to buy a pair of shoes to wear with the garment. But the user may not be sure which color and style of shoes go well with her garment, and needs some recommendations. An existing online apparel shopping website provides information about matching products to users. In one example, the user is interested in a silk print blouse and has put it into the shopping cart. A shopping cart screen may be presented to the user. The screen may show information about items in the shopping cart, e.g., a picture of a model in the blouse, name of the blouse, and its color, size and price. Below that, the screen may show a picture of a model wearing the blouse, a black skirt, and a pair of black sandals and a “Shop this outfit” button. If the user clicks on the “Shop this outfit” button, detailed information about the skirt and the sandals may be shown on the next screen. However, the matching items on this website are selected by a designer in advance, instead of being based on the taste of users who have shopped on the website. This site cannot help the user to find out what type of shoes other users have picked for their silk print blouses.
There is a need for a method that provides shopping recommendations for matching items according to users' sense of style.